Wednesday,
April 23, 2008

Babette's Restaurant Now Serving Art: No Reservations, Please

by Joan Baum

East Hampton - April 23 is William Shakespeare's birthday,
and an excuse to riff on Francisco's response to Bernardo who's come
to take over the midnight watch in Hamlet (I, i) - "For this relief
much thanks." If Francisco were around today, he'd surely warm to
the relief in Babette's on Newtown Lane - the bas relief, that is,
five tactile clay sculptures by Sag Harbor artist Dorothy Frankel,
displayed on the walls of the restaurant. Of course, the
English-speaking world's most quotable and inventive genius also
wrote that "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin" (Troilus
and Cressida, III, iii), a line that in a way sums up Dorothy
Frankel's artistic vision - crafting terra cotta themes from nature
for "peace, harmony and connections."

"Food is art, art is food. Love, art, food, politics are the joys of
living," pleasures that invite "freedom of creative expression,"
says Babette's proprietor Barbara Layton, who saw in Frankel's work
earthy colors and organic textures that would "enhance" the
restaurant decor and be of a piece with its emphasis on vegetarian
cuisine. Though sculptors have a more difficult time than other
artists getting venues in which to show their work, the match
between Frankel and Babette's would seem a good one. Layton reports
that customers have noted that the place looks "absolutely
beautiful," a comment she attributes in part to the presence of
Frankel's reliefs on the walls. Indeed, such comments also reflect
the fact that East Hampton diners do not unthinkingly regard
restaurant art as mere background effect. Layton adds, however, that
it would be nice if customers were then prompted to visit Frankel's
studio garden in Sag Harbor where they could see her 3-D pieces,
some modeled in terra cotta but cast in bronze. Meanwhile, Frankel's
website displays some of her better known larger work, such as the
sign-language hand sculpture that flanks the promenade at Carl
Schurz Park on the Upper East Side.

On the East End since the early 1980s when she left a high-end job
in the City as an exercise physiologist (she has a Masters in the
field) to settle in Sag Harbor, Frankel has steadily honed a craft
that began with woodworking and embraced a number of different
materials but finally found full expression in clay. At a time when
women were hardly visible as sculptors, particularly in woodworking,
Frankel persevered, encouraged by various mentors, including the
legendary sculptor Peter Lipman-Wulf. But she also continued to
learn on her own, finding out how to bend the scrap wood she would
get from a woodworking shop and shaping it into a rowboat. She
broadened her exposure to other methods and materials at Southampton
College, The Sculpture Center, and Urban Glass in the City,
eventually earning a Masters from the National Academy of Design.
About this time it dawned on her that working with clay, as opposed
to wood, decreased her chances "1,000 percent of getting hurt." She
extended her studies in Pietrasanta, a town not that far from
Ferrara, the fabled source of Michelangelo's marble, periodic visits
that confirmed her move to clay. She has heard it said that, "It
takes 10 years to perfect technique and then 10 more to get your own
voice." She believes it.

Surely, however, the experience and strength that made her a
sought-after physiologist in the City and Sag Harbor stood her in
good stead sculpting clay. The Babette's reliefs show her
controlling power: finger pressings that create multiple layers of
branches and leaves in a forest landscape, trees elegantly slipping
into satisfying curving linear patterns, or raised petal-like
emanations from a central mandala-like sun. Each of these works, if
caught by light, also evidences subtle color changes. It's
unfortunate, however, that the largest work, a fine branching-tree
design, limbs sequenced as bones in human anatomy, the whole pressed
onto wood painted in various hues of green and blue, hangs in the
rear of the restaurant, near the bar, where crowds may block it.
Then again, crowds can also mean more potential viewers.

For Frankel, the connection between physiology, the study of
mechanical, physical and biochemical systems, their function and
form, and sculpting in clay has to do with emotional as well as
bodily health - "living your passion," as well as connecting with
others. Obviously, those who own her work, having seen it in it in
various East End galleries as well as at The Nature Conservancy,
Guild Hall of East Hampton, and at the Animal Rescue Fund of the
Hamptons (ARF), appreciate the significance of art that links
people, and people to nature. So stay tuned for even bigger
projects, Frankel promises, such as a huge monument of two
interlocked lands "to walk through, as under a bridge," sculpture,
perhaps like a bridge over troubled water that can ease the mind.